Activation Studio uses the Data Designer of Marketing Cloud to visualize all Attribute Groups. We include all Attribute Groups except for system Attribute Groups like MobileConnect. The synchronized data extension, managed by the Marketing Cloud connector, is included, as well as, all Attribute Groups, that are added manually.
How to add new Attribute Groups?
Navigate to Contact Builder >> Data Designer and click the button ‘Create Attribute Group’. Give it a name and choose an icon that represents the data set.
You can either create a new data extension or link an existing data extension. Linking an existing data extension is what we did in the example below. As next step, you should relate the new object to the data model. You will need a field (attribute) in the data extension that can be used as a link. Links that can be used are:
- ContactKey
- Email Address
- Mobile Address
- Push device
- Push application
- LINE
“ContactKey” and “Email Address” are the most commonly used links. In most cases, the ContactKey is the same as the SubscriberKey. These relationships only count for the first object that will be linked. For additional objects, you can use the fields available in the object on the left side. In our example, we are linking “Email Address” (left) to “EmailAddress” (right) and use the one-to-one relationship. Depending on the data set, this could also be one-to-many or many-to-many.
- One-to-One: linking client or subscriber data
- One-to-Many: linking contact data to for example transactions (there could be more than one related transaction)
- Many-to Many: linking transactions to products (a transaction can included multiple products or the same products)
Refreshing the data model in Activation Studio
The visualization of the Attribute Groups is cached in Activation Studio. To include newly added Attribute Groups, navigate to Activation Studio >> Settings and press the ‘Refresh Attribute Cache’.